Thread by @shayshinecastle

It's the most wonderful time of the year, #Boulder: The last city council meeting of 2021!

It's a fairly light one, too, so feel free to dip out.
- Public hearing, adoption of new fracking rules (which, yes, seems big, but fracking in Boulder is extremely unlikely) boulderbeat.news/2021/11/13/bou…

(That story is from first reading, so the fracking info is good but all the other stuff in it is old)

Also tonight:
Council is gonna change up the way it does email, and possibly resume some extra-meeting engagement stuff

And that's, like, it. Easy peezy.

Oh, also an unspecified update on the Humane Clothing Act (fur ban) the only citizen petition to pass this election. No idea what that is bc there were no notes. I guess we'll see.

After tonight we are DONE until early January, which I for one am stoked about. Bc I've been freelancing and working on my book proposal, I have not actually had more than 5 days off this year. I'm TIRED, ya'll.

Councilwoman Friend is reading a declaration for Dec. 21, National Homeless Persons' Memorial Day. Boulder's event (held each year) will begin at 4 p.m. next Tuesday at the Bandshell.

It remembers and honors members of the local unhoused community who died in 2021.

Scott Medina from Bridge House and Jen Livovich from Feet Forward (disclosure: I volunteer with FF) accepting this declaration, which I don't remember happening in the past....? Although some council members usually attend the event each year.

There's no honor in accepting this proclamation, Livovich says. We're losing ppl every year.

Urges council to create a "low-barrier, accessible emergency day shelter" to prevent these deaths instead.

Nicole Speer: Lauren Folkerts and I toured the Shelter after last week's light snow. There were 5 beds available, and winter hasn't begun yet.

I'm glad we're honoring the dead, Speer says, but "it seems a little out of place" when we haven't allocated extra $$ for overflow beds to prevent more deaths this winter.

Councilman Matt Benjamin has requested emergency shelter be opened tonight through tomorrow bc of the high winds (gusts up to 100mph) that Boulder is expecting.

Kurt Firnhaber, director of HHS: "This situation is not unusual. A year ago September we had a somewhat similar situation ... when we had an impending snowstorm b4 our (winter) shelter planned to open."

That started Oct. 1, so it's already available *this* time.

And there were policy changes that means there really is no severe weather shelter anymore; the shelter is open every night.

"It's near capacity," Firnhaber said. We've had "maybe" 1 capacity turnaway this season and hit capacity 1-2 nights.

"Staff capacity is extremely limited right now," Firnhaber says, so they can't add beds or open up extra tomorrow. "This is a challenge we're having community wide with many service orgs."

Mental Health Partners, for example, apparently has 80(!) job openings, Firnhaber says. Our focus is keeping the basic services up and running.

Firnahber: We are looking at adding 5 extra hotel beds in January and another 5 in March, when we get most of our snow

Benjamin: Usually emergency weather declarations are made after the fact (responding to Firnhaber saying the Red Cross responds in weather emergencies). That doesn't help when we're facing what is a Category 1 hurricane or F1 tornado in terms of wind speeds.

Benjamin: "I feel a little helpless that we don't seem to be saying, 'We've got to get you out of here'" to folks living outside. Branches and trees will be falling. "This is life threatening."

Speer: Community members have emailed ideas about overflow shelter. What can we do? "The urgency of this issue, when we've got a big wind storm coming, is just really pressing on me, too."

Brockett: "During the day, we do have places for folks to go." (Not shelter, but the library, businesses, city buildings, I assume is what he means.)

Firnhaber: We are communicating with various service providers to give these warnings to unhoused folks.

To Speer: I haven't seen any emails about standing up emergency shelter.

So, per usual, no overflow or backup plan. Simply hoping for the best.

@threadreaderapp please unroll. Thanks.